Comedian John Goodman was on Letterman last night to promote his series on HBO, Treme. I remember seeing him on Letterman last year in May when he mentioned that he had quit drinking and he was so much bigger back then! As Kaiser noted last week, Goodman has lost a noticeable amount of weight and he looks great. He explained to Letterman that his weight yo-yoed so frequently that he would routinely drop 60 pounds in the spring and then gain it back plus more every year when he was working on the Roseanne show! (From 1998 – 2000) He said it was all due to “barleycorn” aka drinking, which he’s thankfully since stopped. Goodman looked pretty dapper and I love his dry sense of humor.

John Goodman looked great on Letterman Wednesday night, and Dave brought up his obvious weight loss, saying, “You look wonderful!”

Asked what his all-time weight high was, Goodman said “Plenty… pushing 400.. Somewhere up around there.”

He also elaborated on his previous cycle of losing and gaining weight year after year after year.

“I’d get off of ‘Roseanne’ every spring. I’d lose 60 lbs every spring. Then I got too fond of the barley corn… I’d gain it back and then some, every year.”

And while he didn’t specify what he did this time to take the weight off, Goodman says he hopes to lose more. “[I’m] getting a lot of exercise, I feel great.. It’s going to be an ongoing process for the rest of my life.”

[From Huffington Post]

After John joked that he wanted to look like Paris Hilton (that’s where the clip ends above) they got serious for a moment and Letterman said that now that Goodman has quit drinking it may be “the answer to your [weight] problems.” Goodman said “that’s the answer to a lot of problems. I had it pretty hard for 30 years. It was a lot of residual damage. Just trying to pick up the pieces now.”

Goodman explained that he goes to the gym five days a week and does boxing with a trainer two of those days. “I don’t hit anybody,” he said “It just gets your heart rate right up.”

Goodman said he lives in New Orleans, where he’s been since 1997. He claimed he made the decision after he woke up at Mardi Gras “knee deep in broken glass and suspicious liquids, [and] said ‘this is the place for me.'” His show on HBO, Treme, is set in the city six months after Katrina. “It’s great for the city. It’s pretty accurate. It’s great for the musicians.”

Here’s a trailer for Treme, which does contain F bombs so it’s NSFW. It looks so good and I’m going to see if I can watch this season now! The series has its finale this weekend, June 20, and will be returning for a second season next year.